Chen Jing: Yellens visit to China is to sell US debt?

After the news of US Treasury Secretary Yellen's visit to China, the capital market responded enthusiastically, and the outside world was curious about her talks.

Yellen is the second White House official in Beijing in just three weeks after US Secretary of State Brosky.Compared with the two -day China trip to China, Yellen's visit to China is four days long. The outside world expects that she will meet with many officials in China and financial and economics, including Pan Gongsheng, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Central Bank of China, who has just taken office.

According to the US Ministry of Finance's announcement, Yellen's trip aims to strengthen the communication between China and the United States in global macroeconomics and financial development, and will discuss with Chinese officials how to manage bilateral relations responsibly and deal with global challenges.Essence

A point of view with a large volume on the Internet in China, the most important purpose of the US Treasury Secretary is to hope that China will continue to hold U.S. Treasury bonds and even buy newly issued US debt.Some netizens joked that Yellen's psychological activity was: "US debt is slow, help us!"

When Brinkeng visited China before, there was public opinion that the risk of US Treasury bonds was one of the reasons for his visit to China.Yellen immediately visited Brins, and it strengthened some comments that the United States was required to be in China on the issue of Treasury bonds, and then sent people one after another.

The scale of U.S. debt has reached a record high in recent years. In mid -June, it first exceeded US $ 3.2 trillion (below, 43 trillion yuan), reaching 145 % of the total US economy, nine years earlier than previous forecasts.Although the U.S. government has once again raised the debt limit, if the new bonds have no one to pick up, the original debt country continues to sell, and the US debt still faces the risk of breach of contract.

According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Finance, China currently holds nearly $ 870 billion in US debt, which is the second largest credit country in the United States after Japan.In contrast, Russia, which has continued to sell U.S. debt since the outbreak of the Russian and Ukraine War, continued to reduce its holdings of $ 42 million in April. At present, only 35 million US dollars remain in positions, becoming the largest country with the least US debt.

Some opinion believes that if the United States does not want to make China the next Russia, which is a "clearance" US debt, it should no longer be aggressive to China.It is also suggested that China uses this as a negotiating chip to require the United States to reduce tariffs on China.

However, Zhu Feng, an expert in Sino -US relations, evaluated that in the face of the problems such as the decline in the exchange rate of the RMB against the US dollar, the weakening of offshore RMB transactions, and rising import and export pressure, China has not existed in the realistic policy space of U.S. debt.

Before March this year, China had reduced its holdings for seven consecutive months.China's U.S. debt holdings increased briefly in March and decreased again in April.Although China has the strength to increase its holdings of US debt, as the international "going to the United States" has intensified in recent years, it is more realistic to strengthen the security and financial system stability by reducing holdings of US debt and increased purchase of golden reserves.Long -term consideration.

In fact, in addition to U.S. debt, there are still many topics worthy of discussing with China.Avoid further expansion of the Sino -US trade deficit.

The New York Times quoted officials in the US Treasury, saying that Yellen would meet with executives in American companies in China.The outside world also predicts that she will oppose China's ban on the implementation of the U.S. -Storage chip giant Micron Technology.With the newly revised anti -spy law and the newly -developed foreign relations law, some of the foreign companies in the Chinese market believe that the risk of the Chinese market will continue to increase, and they are worried that they will be more stringent censorship or sanctions.

The above -mentioned topics not only affect the United States, it is also vital to China.As China's economic recovery is weak and the property market has deteriorated again, the overseas debt crisis will inevitably exacerbate domestic financial pressure, which makes the official more cautious about losses to overseas loans.In the face of insufficient domestic demand, China is more urgent to attract foreign investment, hoping to achieve a balance between protecting its rights and interests and retaining investors.

Although U.S. officials have stated that they do not expect Yellen to visit China, they will bring "major breakthroughs", but the mainland and Hong Kong stock markets have opened high for a long time, and the RMB exchange rate should also rebound, showing that the market still has high hopes for this trip.It is expected that both parties can take this opportunity to further alleviate geopolitical tensions.

However, on the eve of Yellen's visit to China, it is reported that Washington is preparing to further limit US companies to sell high -end chips to China.The atmosphere of Yellen was also tense.

David Loevinger, who had coordinated the Obama administration, pointed out that the United States hopes to convey the signal of the United States "that it does not mean to curb China" through this visit.Wendy Cutler, deputy director of the Asian Association Policy Research Institute, and former US high -level trade negotiations, believes that China wants the United States to prove this through action.

The Chinese and American countries in the fields of trade, technology and other fields will not stop because of high -level exchanges; the long -term trend of the intensified competition between the two countries will not change due to the short recovery of bilateral relations.

However, in the foreseeable future, the two sides still need to cooperate with each other to deal with many challenges together.As Yellen said at the hearing last month, the United States can "risk risks" to China, but decoupled "absolutely not."